On The Record

On the record

April 2, 1997

INTERNATIONAL

Singapore phone market gets MobileOne competition

SINGAPORE

For the first time since phone service began in Singapore in 1882, customers had a choice of carriers Tuesday with the debut of a new cellular-phone company to compete with the state-owned Singapore Telecom. The launch of MobileOne and three new paging companies marks Singapore's first step toward throwing open its phone market to full competition by 2000. The upheaval in the lucrative Singapore phone market began last May, when the government said it would open its market for basic services by 2000. Singapore Telecom, a descendant of the Oriental Telephone and Electric Co. founded in 1882, is to receive $1.07 billion for the early loss of its monopoly.

Singapore already has the world's highest concentration of pagers, with more than 1 million in a nation of 3 million people. Cellular phones are nearly as common, carried by everyone from schoolchildren to factory workers.

NATIONAL

Magellan investors pull $520 million from fund

BOSTON

Fidelity Investments' flagship Magellan Fund lost another $520 million in March, marking the ninth consecutive month of net outflows, according to two analysts who track the No. 1 U.S. mutual fund group. Investors are pulling money from Magellan at a time when the world's biggest mutual fund continues to report below-average performance. Magellan, which has about $53.79 billion in assets, was down 0.6 percent in the first quarter of 1997, trailing the 2.2 percent advance of the Standard & Poor's 500 index.

SBC completes merger with Pacific Telesis Group

SAN FRANCISCO

The third-largest merger in U.S. history was completed Tuesday when SBC Communications Inc. acquired Pacific Telesis Group in a deal valued at $16.7 billion. California regulators had given final approval Monday to the merger, which creates a local-telephone powerhouse covering seven states. SBC agreed to conditions set by the state's Public Utility Commission, which included a refund of $213.5 million over five years to customers of Pacific Bell, PacTel's phone subsidiary.

Report: Ohio hospitals part of Columbia/HCA probe

NASHVILLE, Tenn.

A federal investigation of Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp. has widened to include the hospital company's acquisition of several hospitals in northeastern Ohio, The New York Times reported Tuesday. The nation's largest health-care company was already being investigated for possible Medicare fraud. Documents were seized from a Columbia/HCA hospital in El Paso, Texas, on March 19. Columbia/HCA spokeswoman Eve Hutcherson said the company wasn't aware of any investigation at its Ohio hospitals.

EARNINGS

- Miami Subs Corp.

FORT LAUDERDALE

Miami Subs Corp. on Tuesday reported third-quarter revenue of $8 million and profit of $62,000, compared with $8.7 million and $40,000, respectively, in the year-earlier quarter. The decline in revenue reflects the planned conversion from company to franchised operations.